The present invention relates to improvements in a tote box or tray for reproduction apparatus, particularly electronic printers which produce large quantities of discrete copy sheets and deliver the copies in page sequence order beginning with page 1 of the set of copy sheets.
It is known to provide electrographic reproduction apparatus with finishers that receive copy sheets fed seriatim from the reproduction apparatus to the finisher for stacking on a tote tray or the like. Apparatus of this general type is disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,672, entitled Copies Finisher for an Electrographic Reproducing Device, issued Jan. 16, 1979 in the names of L. E. Burlew et al. In the finisher disclosed in that patent sets of copy sheets are fed seriatim to a hopper where they are accumulated and jogged to form an aligned set of copy sheets. The set of copy sheets is then grasped by an arm, removed from the hopper and swung into a position over a tote tray where they are released and thus delivered onto the bottom surface of the tote tray. An elevator mechanism gradually lowers the tote tray as additional sets of copy sheets are delivered to the tray. When a job is completed the tote tray can be removed and the sets of copy sheets unloaded from the tray. Unloading of the tote tray as disclosed in the Burlew et al patent is relatively easy for two reasons. First of all, the finisher is primarily designed for forming booklets that are stacked in the tray, and the booklets can be unloaded individually or in groups that are small enough to be conveniently handled by the operator. In other words, the entire stack of booklets in the tray is not necessarily unloaded at once. In addition, the booklets are delivered to the tray with the first page of each booklet facing upwardly, so that the booklets do not need to be inverted when they are unloaded.
Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,425, entitled Binding Apparatus and Method, issued Sept. 25, 1984 in the names of R. C. Baughman et al discloses apparatus for forming booklets either by using a finisher as disclosed in the Burlew et al patent or by means of an adhesive binding apparatus. The adhesive binding apparatus also uses a tote tray on which sets of booklets are accumulated and unloaded in the manner described above for the finisher disclosed in the Burlew et al patent. Here, again, the tote tray receives a series of booklets with the top page thereof facing upwardly so that, during unloading, the booklets can be removed individually or in conveniently small groups, and there is no need for inverting the booklets during removal.
The reproduction apparatus disclosed in the Burlew et al patent comprises an electrophotographic apparatus having an optical system for flash exposure of individual sheets with the copy sheets produced leaving the reproduction apparatus with the image facing downwardly and with the finisher being effective to invert the sheets so that they are delivered face up into the tote tray of the finisher. Electrographic apparatus as shown in the Burlew et al patent can be modified to provide electronic input, instead of an optical system, and thus form a printer for producing copies directly from a computer or other electronic apparatus. In such case the copy sheets from the printer may be inverted by means of a J-type inverter, for example, as known in the art. Thus the output to a tote tray as shown in Burlew et al will be delivered in page sequence order, beginning with the first page of a document and with the first page reaching the tote tray in a face down orientation with subsequent pages being directly on top thereof and facing downwardly. Also, output from electronic printers may comprise extremely long documents so the tote tray must be able to handle large stacks of discrete sheets, for example, about two or three thousand sheets. Under these circumstances it is important to be able to unload the sheets from the tray conveniently and simultaneously invert the entire stack in a way which is simple for the operator to handle and which assures continuity of the page sequence order of the sheets after inversion of the stack of copy sheets.